Ria de Aveiro

The Ria de Aveiro is a lagoon roughly forty-five kilometres long and up to eleven wide, formed when a sandbar closed off a bay from the sixteenth century onward, and it is shallow, tidal and threaded with channels between marsh islands and salt pans. Salt has been made here since the Middle Ages by evaporation in shallow clay-bottomed pans, a practice that has shrunk dramatically but continues at a handful of marinhas, some of which take visitors and offer floating in the brine. The moliceiro boats, flat-bottomed with painted prows, were built to harvest moliço - seaweed cut from the lagoon bed for fertiliser - and now carry tourists along the Aveiro canals. Beyond that the lagoon is a major bird site, with waders, terns, flamingos and a large gull population. The city of Aveiro sits on its inner edge with Art Nouveau buildings and canals.

What you actually see

• The salt pans - medieval-origin marinhas still worked by evaporation.
• The moliceiro boats - painted flat-bottomed craft built for harvesting seaweed.
• The channels - tidal waterways between marsh islands across forty-five kilometres.
• The birds - waders, terns, flamingos and gulls across the flats.

When to go

April to October for boats and weather; winter for the largest bird numbers. A day. Salt pan visits run in the production season, roughly June to September.

Honest expectations

The moliceiro canal trips in Aveiro are short, crowded and touristic - the lagoon proper is better seen from São Jacinto or the salt pans. No shade on the pans. Bird watching needs binoculars and distance. Water quality varies.

Nearby

The São Jacinto dunes are across the lagoon; Costa Nova and its striped houses are south-west.